Hu Yong: Characteristics of Chinese culture and its contemporary values

——Reading Liang Shuming's "Essentials of Chinese Culture"

The two major issues that Liang Shuming has pondered all his life are the "China problem" and the "life problem". The Chinese problem has spread from the world's great traffic in the past hundred years, the power of Westerners and Western culture to the East, and it has occurred. To understand the Chinese problem, we must understand the changes caused by Chinese society in the past hundred years and its internal and external situation. And the old Chinese society that understood that it had not changed at the beginning was mentioned before understanding its changes. [1] The China problem was not originally a problem, because in history, China has always been in a leading position, but since the Opium War in 1840, China has been defeated repeatedly, and advanced intellectuals have begun to open their eyes to the world, from learning Western artifacts to systems and culture, from "Using Chinese bodies in the West" to "comprehensively Westernizing", but they have never found a way to save the nation from peril and realize national rejuvenation. In Liang Shuming's view, Chinese culture is the root cause of solving these two major problems, and the key lies in how to understand this culture. For culture, Liang Shuming has his own unique insights. In "Essentials," he made a broad positioning of culture, saying: "Culture is everything that our people rely on in their lives." He goes on to point out: "Culture is an extremely real thing. The original meaning of culture should be economic, political, and even everything. [2] However, the Essentials do not explore Chinese culture from the broad concept of all-encompassing culture, but explore the personality and characteristics of Chinese culture in the contrast between Chinese and Western cultures, especially the analysis of the characteristics of Chinese culture that is different from the West "specifically on its social life", and Liang Shuming believes that the difference between Chinese and Western cultures comes from different social structures.

First, the characteristics of Chinese culture

The Essentials hold that "the social structure of one time and one place is actually the backbone of all cultures at that time and place, and in addition, it is only the skin and flesh attached to the backbone." If the two sides are similar in social structure, their cultures must be roughly similar; Conversely, if the social structures are different from each other, then the others cannot be different." [2] Liang Shuming enumerates fourteen characteristics of Chinese culture, especially the sixth and seventh characteristics, namely religion and family, as an example, to explore the uniqueness of Chinese culture in the contrast between Chinese and Western cultures.

1. The basis of Chinese social ethics and the individual of Western society.

Liang Shuming believes that the most basic components of society are groups, families and individuals, and the three form different social structures with different positions in society. In China, the family is clearly in a position and plays an extremely important role, while the relationship between the group and the individual is as easy as nothing; In the West, the group and the individual are two entities, and the family is almost empty. China has evolved into an ethical-based society because of the emphasis on the family, while the West has formed an individual-based society because of group life. Individuals and groups are treated together, and group life can show the individual.

China has a relationship of harmony and obligation between people because of ethics; The individual orientation of Western society forms a relationship of relative and power. Specifically, economically, Chinese "all care for each other and have mutual responsibilities", such as husband and wife, father and son, relatives and brothers, friends and neighbors, etc. As long as everyone in the society has this responsibility, "if there is another, the group fingers think that it is unjust"; In the West, even fathers and sons, husbands and wives, are "different wealth", "occasional accommodation, still out of loan", between each other, clear division. Politically, China "uses national politics to make it into family friendship", pays attention to "rule by man", and does not distinguish between public law and private law, criminal law and civil law; Western societies advocate rights and freedoms, pay attention to the rule of law, sound laws, and separate public and private laws. In social life, Chinese socialize the ethical or affectionate relationships between family members and become the link to maintain social order and stability; Westerners will consciously use the law to protect their rights and interests, and the operation of the whole society depends on the law.

China's "ethical-based" social structure is to use the family structure as a model to structure the entire social relationship. The promotion of the family relationship model to the whole society will inevitably produce a "circle" of relatives and distances, which is far from the "group" organization of Western society, which is bound by kinship and emphasizes the constraints of morality and etiquette, which is a characteristic of Chinese society that is different from the West. The famous sociologist Fei Xiaotong, while talking about the difference in the social structure of China and the West, said that Western society is a group pattern, and the Chinese social structure is a "differential order pattern", that is, with "self" as the center, such as a round of ripples produced by a stone entering the water, the ripples are the social relations that can be produced by themselves, and naturally, the closeness of the relationship is also formed. [3] This ethical and moral system based on blood relations is essentially in the category of private morality, and its potential other side is the lack of public morality in Chinese society, such as self-centeredness, selfishness, and loose discipline, which Liang Shuming is also keenly aware of, and believes that this is the drawback of the relationship between Chinese social ethics and should be corrected.

Liang Shuming's rational investigation and analysis of the heterogeneous structure of Chinese social ethics and the individual orientation of Western society has undoubtedly been profound, which should be an important entry point for examining the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, reflecting his unique insight as a thinker, which has had a profound impact on the later Chinese ideological and cultural circles.

2. Chinese social occupations are divided, and Western social classes are antagonistic

As far as the structure of Chinese and Western societies is concerned, the ethical basis is in China, and the individual is only one aspect in the West, on the other hand, western society has class antagonism and Chinese society is a professional division. The division of occupations is another feature of Chinese society, which Liang Shuming has concluded to have a completely different social structure that is opposed to the Western class.

Through research, Liang Shuming believes that there is a lack of economic basis and political conditions for the formation of a class society in China. First of all, economically, "land can be freely bought and sold" makes land concentration not formed in Chinese society; "Without the industrial revolution" and the "equal division of the inheritance" and making it difficult to concentrate capital, China's industry and commerce "are always nothing more than small industries and small businessmen." This leaves China without the soil for class antagonisms economically. After the industrial revolution, Western society concentrated capital and concentrated land, industry and commerce developed, and the trend of class antagonism was formed. Secondly, in politics, the open reading opportunities that Confucius had made it possible for anyone to enter their careers through reading, and the morale of the soldiers and peasants "during the period was completely connected without separation", and there was no condition for the formation of a confrontational trend in politics. It can be concluded from this that there are only four different classes in China: scholars, farmers, workers, and merchants, and there is no class antagonism. In Western society, group life has produced a strict hierarchical system, official positions and identities are hereditary, and intermarriage is absolutely forbidden between different classes, so there are serious class antagonisms in the West, whether in the Middle Ages or in modern times.

The difference between group life and family life actually comes from religious issues, and Liang Shuming believes that religious issues are the watershed of Chinese and Western cultures. In the early days of human culture, both the East and the West began with ancestor worship, but there have been great differences since then: the West has been driven by Christianity to live in groups; China was civilized by Zhou Kong to develop family life. The supremacy of Western Christianity and the establishment of the church, a supra-familial and familial group, have made its group internally organized, and external struggles such as struggles with other religions have led them to form a high degree of community spirit. Therefore, in Western society, people's concepts of organizational discipline and state are very strong. In the Church, everyone is equal, belongs only to the group, breaks the gap between families, and finally through the free city of the late Middle Ages, cultivates the modern state, and develops its politics and laws in the stable progress of the modern state, while Western democracy is based on its politics and law. Since Zhou Kong, the center of culture in China has shifted to the non-religious Zhou Kong indoctrination, and in the past, religious forms such as worshipping heaven and ancestors only constituted a condition for Zhou Kong's indoctrination, and China could not even produce democratic soil due to the lack of such a group life.

Second, the difference between Chinese and Western cultures

Chinese and Western cultures are different, and they are actually separated from religious issues, while China's lack of religion is due to the early development of reason.

1. Reason and reason

Rationality is one of the most important concepts proposed by Liang Shuming in the Essentials, he believes: "If there is a difference between Chinese culture and Western culture, I think that in China it is longer than rationality and shorter than reason; The West is longer than reason and shorter than reason. ”[4]

What is the difference between reason and reason? He believes that human beings have the role of the mind, and reason is the "knowing" side of this mind function; There is another aspect of the role of the mind, that is, reason, which is the "emotion" in the role of the mind. Reason is a lower level of cognition than reason, and it is still limited to the methods and means of life; Reason, on the other hand, has "fallen into the realm of methods and means," "suddenly opened up to the state of doing nothing," and thus "opened up selfless feelings—this is reason." ”

"Essentials" believes that the difference between the rationality and rationality of Chinese and Western cultures is mainly manifested in academics: First, Chinese society, from Confucius to Mencius to Wang Yangming, is committed to the study of people, in order to inspire and guide people to "people's hearts upwards" as the first priority. The so-called "upward heart" is "the heart that is not willing to be wrong, the heart that knows shame, the heart that hates laziness and likes to cheer up, the heart that is good and serves good, the heart that requires a reasonable social life, in short, there is a more upward thought in addition to the loss of life's interests." "The rationality of Chinese culture is seen here. In the West, the study of "things" must use reason, and the development of Western science and technology is the manifestation of the development of the mind on the rational side to the peak. The correctness of reason is the correctness of the index. Reason is in the process of people constantly reflecting on themselves, so that their behavior is reasonable and correct, and in attitude can be "accessible and peaceful". Second, China's pursuit of "rationality" has produced Wang Xue, who speaks of conscience and practices it. The Development of Epistemology in the West is "the pursuit of poverty to the point of extreme calm and pure abstraction, reaching the highest point of the role of reason." "The knowledge of conscience does not always produce likes and dislikes, and the practice of doing what is done is the implementation of likes and dislikes, which is "a thorough and thorough rationalization." "The bias of Chinese and Western cultures can be seen. Third, the Conquest and Transformation and Utilization of Nature in the West, "the greatness of the results is beyond words." But the vastness of China's territory, the integration of many nationalities, the long history coupled with the self-maintenance of social order all show the more "greatness" of Chinese culture, which is the crystallization of rational culture. In Liang Shuming's view, if reason is a tool or method to conquer nature and create material civilization, reason guides the direction of human cultural development.

The difference between the rationality and rationality of Chinese and Western cultures is manifested in the attitude of life: the West exerts force outward, showing a relative trend; China pushes inward, showing that it is in harmony. Pushing inward, one is because "ethics is always a spirit of selflessness." On the one hand, the selflessness is always for the sake of the other party, paying attention to the obligation, and forming a deep affection between people, on the other hand, it makes the individual drown in the ocean of ethics and never be discovered. In the West, after the formation of an individual-oriented society in modern times, what stands out everywhere is the individual, and the attitude towards nature to society and the method of object to people will inevitably cause a relative trend between people and between people and between people and society. At the same time, the individual orientation also makes Westerners have a strong sense of self-rights. The second is that China's social occupation divides the way to give everyone the opportunity to develop, open up a way for everyone to work hard, so that the poor, rich and poor in society, ups and downs, and circulation are connected. In Western society, classes are antagonistic, barriers are tight, and people must fight outward if they want to seek development, thus forming a relative trend. Xiang Li does not make demands on others, but requires self-cultivation and self-denial, not only in various secular trades in society, such as reading, farming, working, business, etc., but also through their own practice to reach the realm of saints, which is respected by the world. The love of harmony is another major manifestation of what Liang Shuming calls the spirit of Chinese rational culture.

Taking rationality and reason as a major difference between Chinese and Western cultural concepts is an important idea put forward by Liang Shuming, who added rational characteristics in addition to human rational characteristics, regarded the two as two different stages of human development, and gave the two different connotations such as the generation of knowledge and technology by reason, and the generation of moral friendship by reason, so that on the one hand, a reasonable explanation was found for the strength of Western culture, and on the other hand, it also gave universal value to Chinese culture, and he affirmed that rationality is higher than reason. So we can't give up the good side of our culture.

2. Non-religious and religious.

Religious issues are a watershed in Chinese and Western cultures. Liang Shuming believes that although in the early days of human culture, both the East and the West began with religion, there have been great differences since then: the West has been led by Christianity to live in groups; China was civilized by Zhou Kong to develop family life.

The supremacy of Western Christianity and the establishment of the church, a supra-familial and familial group, have made its group internally organized, and external struggles such as struggles with other religions have led them to form a high degree of community spirit. Therefore, in Western society, people's concepts of organizational discipline and state are very strong. Since Zhou Kong, the center of culture in China has shifted to the non-religious Zhou Kong indoctrination, and previously religious forms such as worshiping heaven and ancestors only constituted one condition for Zhou Kong's indoctrination. From this he concluded: The group life in the West is opened by Christianity; Family life in China was indoctrinated from Zhou Kong, thus forming two different cultures, religious and non-religious.

People's emotional uneasiness is mainly due to the death of themselves and their loved ones, and due to the underdevelopment of science, the lack of knowledge, people are the most ignorant and difficult to know about life and death, so Christianity is popular and developed in Western society, but in China, the sage Confucius never said "strange, force, chaos, god", that is to say, when religion is always inseparable from ghosts and gods, Confucius does not talk about it. Inseparable from the ghosts and gods of life and death are the religious concepts of sin and blessings and all the religious acts of praying for blessings, and Confucius proposed that "there are many?" In short, the elements necessary for religion are not available in Confucius, and he has a spirit that religion cannot have—that is, the belief that all people are rational and have a "heart of right and wrong." Therefore, when Western religions make people believe in the same precepts, Zhou Kongjiao strives to make people reflect on themselves and does not give a unified standard.

In this regard, Liang Shuming praised it loudly: "What a spirit this is! Mankind will progress for another ten thousand years, and I am afraid that it will not exceed it. "What is this rationality?" It's morality, not religion. He said, "Morality is a rational thing, which exists in the self-discipline of the individual." Religion is a matter of faith, and it is entrusted to the faithful to observe the precepts. "Since Confucius, China has embarked on the road of substituting morality for religion. This is exactly the opposite of the religious teachings of abandoning self-confidence and believing, abandoning their self-reliance and relying on others. Chinese know only right and wrong without religious evil ideas. Liang Shuming affirmed that whether it is self-discipline or strict observance of religious precepts, it can make society form a good discipline order, but religion has a quick effect, and it is powerful and not easy to fall, which is incomparable with morality. Non-religion and religion are indeed a watershed between Chinese and Western cultures. Leung's grasp of this cultural difference is insightful, and there is no lack of insight into the different effects and effects of this difference.

Third, the contemporary value of Chinese culture

Looking at the above conclusions, the problem is only in terms of social structure and the needs of the times, and Chinese westerners are not at all different. China's lack of democracy and lack of science stems from the early enlightenment of reason and the precocious maturity of culture, not that Chinese culture is inferior to Western culture, so it is necessary to establish the concept of cultural self-confidence. At the end of the book, Liang Shuming said that today's world is not justified and cannot be peaceful, and it is difficult to change the accumulated habits of the life of the Westerners. In my opinion, the era of selfish ridicule of Chinese is almost over; the era of selfish ridicule of Westerners is coming. [5]

Today's world is in the midst of major changes unprecedented in a century, and such a major change is not a change in one thing, one region and one country, but a change in the world, a change in the times, and a change in history. Whether we can cope with this major change well depends on whether we have the wisdom to change, the way to cope with changes, and the courage to seek change. We must strengthen the four self-confidences, the most fundamental thing is to strengthen cultural self-confidence, culture is the soul of a country and a nation. Culture rejuvenates the country and prospers, and culture strengthens the nation. Without a high degree of cultural self-confidence and the prosperity of culture, there will be no great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. [6]

1. Carry forward the excellent traditional culture of the nation and enhance cultural self-confidence

To enhance cultural self-confidence, we must first carry forward the self-confidence of the traditional national culture and solve this problem in order to solve the problem of where the mainland culture comes from and where it is going. To carry forward the self-confidence of national traditional culture, it is necessary to re-understand and develop traditional culture, not only to inherit the excellent components of traditional culture, but also to recreate culture according to practice, absorb the beneficial components of all cultures, and give new era connotations to traditional culture. Without inheritance, culture loses its foundation, without innovation, culture lacks vitality and vitality, and Lenin has established a correct attitude for us in his cultural construction ideas on the dialectical relationship between the destruction and establishment of culture, inheritance and innovation, and provided historical experience for enhancing cultural self-confidence in China today.

2. Promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture

Chinese culture is both historical and contemporary; it is both national and global. Only by not forgetting the original can we open up the future, and only by being good at inheritance can we innovate better. With the beginning of a new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, inheriting and developing China's excellent traditional culture has ushered in new historical opportunities and challenges, and is facing a series of new topics and new tasks. We must more consciously and proactively promote the adaptation of China's excellent traditional culture to contemporary society and coordination with the process of modernization, and better promote creative transformation and innovative development. Creative transformation is to transform those connotations and forms that still have reference value in accordance with the characteristics and requirements of the times, give them new connotation carriers and communication channels of the times, and activate their vitality. Innovative development is to supplement, expand and improve the connotation of China's excellent traditional culture in accordance with the new progress and new progress of the times, and enhance its influence and appeal. The best way to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture is to let the excellent traditional culture form a new theory in combination with contemporary reality, such as the traditional Chinese idea of home country and the world, which General Secretary Xi Jinping has developed into a community with a shared future for mankind.

3. Promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and improve the soft power of national culture

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that civilizations exchange because of diversity, learn from each other because of exchanges, and develop because of mutual learning. [7] In the midst of major changes in the world unprecedented in a century, the closer we are to the goal of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the closer we are to the center of the world stage, the more we need to establish and practice the civilization concept of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and tolerance, transcend civilizational estrangement with civilization exchanges, transcend civilizational conflicts with civilization mutual learning, transcend civilization superiority with civilization coexistence, and consolidate the humanistic foundation for building a community with a shared future for mankind. It is necessary to seize the historic opportunity of all countries in the world to pay more and more attention to China's development and hope to understand Chinese culture, extract the essence of culture with contemporary value and world significance in excellent traditional culture, disseminate the achievements of contemporary Chinese cultural innovation that inherit excellent traditional culture and carry forward the spirit of the times, base themselves on their own countries and face the world, display the common values of all mankind that adhere to peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom contained in Chinese culture, and enhance the soft power of national culture and the influence of Chinese culture.

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Xi Jinping. Decisive Victory in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in An All-Round Way and Winning the Great Victory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era: Report at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China[M].Beijing: People's Publishing House, 2017.42.

Xi Jinping. Exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations are an important driving force for promoting the progress of human civilization and the peaceful development of the world[J/OL], Beijing: Qiushi, 2019, No. 9.

ZHAO Xiaoyu. Liang's View of Chinese and Western Culture from the Essentials of Chinese Culture[J].Journal of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007(06).

(The author is a master's student at the China Rural Revitalization Research Institute of Hunan Normal University)

Think it looks good [in the eye] and then go